MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > A Couple of Things

A Couple of Things

posted 8 years ago by rsgre
13 replies | jump to latest

Watched this on cable Halloween night, first time in years, still holds up fairly well. The shower scene is still a shocker, especially as you get older, and identify so well with her plight from the beginning.
Noticed a couple of things: why does the Detective Arbogast always exit his car through the right passenger side, ideas anyone ? Seemed strange....
Vera Miles gives a haunting performance, I think she would have been better in the lead in "Vertigo", too bad she missed it due to pregnancy.

RSGRE

[–] swanstep 8 years ago

why does the Detective Arbogast always exit his car through the right passenger side, ideas anyone ?

This often comes up...
1. Bench front seats in cars just did allow for this sort of scooting over manoeuver, and plenty of people took advantage of it occasionally in real life. Lots of films in the '30s, '40s, and '50s took advantage of this fact to make it close to a cinema norm.
2. Having people exit through the right saved a camera set-up, made for a speedy transition on-screen, possibly just struck people as looking fluid and cool.

[–] millsey72 (10259) a year ago

I still exit my car from the right side, even though I have to jump over the console to do it. Nothing unusual about that

[–] roger1 (3626) a year ago

why does the Detective Arbogast always exit his car through the right passenger side, ideas anyone ?
This often comes up...
1. Bench front seats in cars just did allow for this sort of scooting over manoeuver, and plenty of people took advantage of it occasionally in real life. Lots of films in the '30s, '40s, and '50s took advantage of this fact to make it close to a cinema norm.
2. Having people exit through the right saved a camera set-up, made for a speedy transition on-screen, possibly just struck people as looking fluid and cool.

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What's funny, I think, is that when Hitchcock made Psycho in 1960, this probably wasn't noticed at all, either as "an artifice" or because REAL people DID cross the bench seat to depart.

In real life I expect people -- in 1960, too -- simply got out through the door closest to their destination. Indeed, Arbogast gets out by sliding -- twice -- to avoid having to move the camera to capture his getting out. (Marion does this once, upon arrival at the Bate Motel. Why get out on the rainy side of the car?)

BTW, also in the film, Arbogast on one occasion gets out on the driver's side...to enter the phone booth , which is close TO the driver's side. So the detective chose which door to use given circumstances.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a year ago

I like the SECOND time when Arbogast arrives at the motel, in an intricate, plot-pushing shot that uses the "sliding out the passenger side" motif:

Single long shot, opens on the Bates Motel in the distance at night. Norman walking along the porch with towels, looks up, sees SOMETHING(we hear a car)..and Norman scurries off screen right and disappears into the darkness. (Hitchcock is "placing" Norman way far away from the house so that we don't think he could BE in the house when Arbogast goes up there. Later in the film, it is revealed that there is an OPENING between the two wings of the motel that leads to the hill behind the motel and to the house. Lila uses this opening and we later realize -- Norman did, to head up to the house ahead of Arbogast, and get "dressed to kill" when Arbogast arrived.

The shot is still held. The camera followed Norman to the RIGHT, it now reverses course to the LEFT as Arbogast's car arrives and fills the foreground of the screen.

Arbogast slides out on the passenger side, but THIS time, he is part of "Hitchocck compositional choreography." As
Arbogast walks towards the motel, the camera NOW takes in the house behind it, and Arbo is on a "straight diagonal" before him: the motel, the hill, the house and the brightly lit "Mother's window." (With no one visible in the brightly lit window, but its being lit SUGGESTS a person there..)

This shot is satisfying in many ways: for plot(the twist is protected); for camera movement(back and forth all within a single shot) for composition and for "pleasure of vision": the diagonal to the motel, the hill, the house, and the window as Arbogast walks towards them all as if magnetized.

Sidebar: Psycho makes a lot of Mother's window up there on the left fronting side of the house. Indeed, later in this sequence, when Arbogast arrives on foot at the porch of the house, the brightly lit window STILL dominates: Mother is up there. Waiting for Arbogast.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a year ago

And thus: take a look some time at the famous poster for THE EXORCIST 13 years later: The Exorcist down below the Georgetown townhouse...a brightly lit window up on the second floor, to the fronting left.

A stronger connection between two classic horror superthrillers could hardly be found.

[–] millsey72 (10259) a year ago

If you ever saw Skyfall, check out the scene when M is being lead of out of the courtroom shootout. Tanner opens the back door to let M in, then goes around the back of the car to enter on our driving side. However in the UK, the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car, so it made no sense to run around the back to the other side. Of course Bond was already in the drivers seat and sped away as soon as M got in

[–] roger1 (3626) a year ago

Well, that's certainly a precise take on a movie other than the much-analzyed Psycho(with its passenger door departures.)

I will assume that the Skyfall business wasn't so much a gaffe as a means of "getting it all in one shot from one camera angle" as with Psycho. Unless there is more than one shot...

[–] roger1 (3626) a year ago

The shower scene is still a shocker, especially as you get older,

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That is an interesting statement. I'm not sure what you mean by it, but I've thought about it and I think MANY screen murders have more emotional impact when you grow older, and you consider the reality of the taking of a human life.

Thus, the shower murder was a "big screen shock scene" in its time but with years and age one comes to understand not only the horrific and painful nature of Marion's death but of how she was robbed of her life for no reason whatsoever.

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and identify so well with her plight from the beginning.

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I've got a post here somewhere that calls it "the biggest lie in movie history" that Hitchcock intended to trick us by killing Marion in the shower -- he made a trailer in 1960 that SHOWED the shower murder(represented.)

Still, I do find that I can set that aside and indeed "get involved with her plight from the beginning." A key critic -- Dwight MacDonald -- was outraged by Psycho and noted "we get to know quite a bit about this woman" before she is so brutally murdered -- it offended him that we so well KNEW Marion before her death. Well, what's wrong with that? Increases the involvement for US.

And then -- true horror to me -- after her murder, Marion spends about nine more minutes in the movie -- as a LIFELESS CORPSE -- while Norman works around her body and carries her to the car trunk( she is no longer "Marion, the person" -- she is waste matter.)

Hitchcock returned to this even more forcefully (and sickeningly) in Frenzy (1972) in which we first watch a psycho killer convert a living woman into a lifeless corpse(he rapes and strangles her and leaves her upright in a chair) and then later wrestles about with the corpse of ANOTHER female victim, in a potato truck where he hid her body. In both scenes, we are reminded that dead bodies are only REMNANTS of the living, breathing, caring, loving people they used to be. And for a murderer to FORCE that conversion from human to body before nature/God would have...its a sin.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a year ago

Vera Miles gives a haunting performance, I think she would have been better in the lead in "Vertigo", too bad she missed it due to pregnancy.

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We have another thread around here in which I remarked that when Julianne Moore played Lila in Gus Van Sant's remake, she rather contemptuously said of Lila, "I have no character to play here." Vera Miles proves her wrong entirely. Its just a matter of seeing -- as Miles did -- all the UNSPOKEN things about Lila that Miles enacts -- her deep bond with Marion, her shocked betrayal at Marion's theft (though she looks down in some guilt when Sam asks her "can you believe (she'd do that)" her desperation at Marion's disappearance, her need to push those MEN(Sam, Arbogast, Sheriff Chambers) to DO something, etc.

Vera Miles is the only surviving actor from Psycho alive as I post this in December, 2023(the last day! hello, 2024.) She hasn't been seen or photographed in decades -- there were no photos of her in 1998 when Van Sant made Psycho. Julianne Moore wanted to meet with Miles for that movie, but Miles said no...her granddaughter met with Moore instead.

So Vera Miles is rather "the mystery woman" of Psycho and of Hitchcock.

Did missing out on Vertigo ensure that Vera Miles didn't become a star? Oh, I don't think so. Miles got leads in a number of other important pictures -- The Wrong Man for Hitchcock(she is great in it), The FBI Story(looking great next to James Stewart, you can SEE her in Vertigo) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance(as the woman who has to choose between lawyer James Stewart and gunman John Wayne.)

But her performances in those movies revealed something "wrong" for Miles and stardom. A bit too starchy, too strident. Lacking sex appeal -- which was crazy given that Miles did some swimsuit shots that revealed quite the body.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) a year ago

Vera Miles ended up being in four bona fide classics -- two for John Ford(The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) and two for Hitchcock(The Wrong Man, Psycho.)

But Miles seemed to "get the picture" early on. Top stardom: no. YEARS of steady work as a "working actress" in TV and the occasional Disney picture? Yes.

And she joined Anthony Perkins in coming back for Psycho II in 1983. Interesting: while Perkins couldn't REALLY recapture his Norman Bates of 1960(he looked older, he had a weird new "tic-ridden manner" and a singsong voice), Miles COMPLETELY picked up Lila Crane just where she left off in 1960. It was uncanny.

And though I don't think Psycho II is a very good movie, it did have the malice aforethought to have Lila Crane die in exactly the fruit cellar where she escaped death 23 years before. And in a much more graphic and sickening way than Janet Leigh died in Hays Code 1960.

[–] dsfa2020 (14) 9 months ago

Vera Miles was born in August 1929, right in between the births of Audrey Hepburn (May) and Grace Kelly (November). Other actors born the same year were Jean Simmons (January), Sidney Poitier (February) and Christopher Plummer (December). Only Vera out of this illustrious list of actors remains alive today, but don’t forget, 1929 was 95 years ago!

[–] roger1 (3626) 9 months ago

Vera Miles was born in August 1929, right in between the births of Audrey Hepburn (May) and Grace Kelly (November). Other actors born the same year were Jean Simmons (January), Sidney Poitier (February) and Christopher Plummer (December).

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A very good birth year for some very beautiful and compelling actresses...and a couple of suave and compelling actors.

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Only Vera out of this illustrious cast of actors remains alive today, but don't forget, 1929 was 95 years ago!

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Indeed. The sole survival of Vera Miles makes her the "winner" in a control group born in a certain year..there are always one or two who last longer. And reading that list "just off the top of my head," Grace Kelly(as Princess Grace) died the youngest(at 52 in a car accident on the roads she drove in To Catch a Thief) Audrey Hepburn died of cancer at 63(which is considered still quite young for most people)...and the rest lived long lives: Jean Simmons 80, Christopher Plummer 91, Sidney Poitier 94.

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There's a book out with a 2023 copyright(recent) called "Hitchcock's Blondes" and in a post script chapter, the ages of Hitchcock's surviving blondes are given...along with the death ages of those who have passed away.

The survivors are significant in their ages:

Eva Marie Saint(North by Northwest) -- 99. Which has me rooting for her to make it to 100. This doesn't always happen. Betty White didn't make it from 99 to 100, for instance.

Kim Novak (Vertigo) -- just turned 94.

Tippi Hedren(The Birds, Marnie) -- 93.

Vera Miles did not get a chapter in this book - but her 95 puts next in line after Saint.

Also not covered in the book is brunette Julie Andrews - who at 88 is lined up to join those other Hitchcock ladies in their 90s.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 9 months ago

I suppose you could say that being a Hitchcock blonde was a recipe for longevity. But alas, Grace died in that car crash at 52. Ingrid Bergman --whom the book names as a Hitchcock blonde but I've never really seen that way(she wasn't a bright yellow blonde or a platinum blonde, like Madeleine Carroll or Kelly or Doris Day or Novak or Saint or Leigh or Hedren)..died on her 67th birthday -- that's always quite an acheivement. Cancer. Didn't make it to 70.

This little review of "Hitchocck actresses still living in their 90s" reminds me of the longevity of the female of the species. We have some famous actors still alive in their 90s -- Michael Caine, Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, Robert Duvall -- but only Eastwood is still active.

And there remains this about Vera Miles. Whereas Eva Marie Saint was willing to make some appearances in her early 90s, and Kim Novak popped up here and there(usually to celebrate Vertigo) in her 80's...Vera Miles just seemed to fully remove herself from the public eye --I'll guess in her early 80s. No sightings(she lives in the Palm Springs area) no photos.